Our People
Sean Taylor – Director
Sean Taylor is one of the co-founders of Content Guru.
After graduating from King’s College, University of London, with a BSc (Hons) in Electronics and Computer Science, Sean worked for Rhetorex Inc. a specialist company in the field of CTI (computer telephony integration). At Rhetorex, Sean was based first in the UK and then in San Jose, California.
Rhetorex was a pioneer in the use of open standards technology, leading the way in the development of what are now known as unified communications systems. Its commitment to innovation drove rapid growth and, in the early 1990s, Rhetorex became the Computer Telephony Products business unit of Lucent.
Drawing on his experience at Rhetorex and Lucent, Sean co-founded Redwood Technologies in May 1993, today one of the world’s leading providers of media gateway solutions, with deployments in approximately 60 countries. Redwood supplies numerous blue chip clients, including government bodies, financial institutions, such as Citi and HSBC, and carriers, such as BT and Deutsche Telekom.
He is a member of the CBI SME Council using his twenty years’ experience as a business owner and director to advise on how to overcome the challenges faced by SMEs today.
Martin Taylor – Director
Martin Taylor is one of the co-founders of Content Guru.
After graduating from King’s College, University of London, with a BSc(Hons) in Business Management, Martin worked as a futures market analyst in Asia. He returned to the UK to help launch Redwood Technologies in 1993, developing new overseas markets and driving Redwood’s products into new industry sectors through innovative applications of its core technology.
Martin was a pioneer in prepaid billing for deregulated telecoms operators in the 1990s. This path of development led directly to today’s RTInstantBilling product set, which provides the financial process engine behind millions of mobile, IP and machine-to-machine transactions around the world.
More recently, Martin has applied his creative skills to devising new interactive enterprise applications for media, marketing and retail, leveraging the consumer’s mobile device to deliver mass personalisation and major new transaction capabilities.
The coiner of the storm® brand and a leading innovator in the field of cloud-based communications, Martin is a regular speaker at international conferences. He sits on the CBI Intellectual Property Committee and on the Advisory Board of the Department of Management, King’s College London.
John Rees – Director
John graduated from Durham University with BA(Hons) degree in Business Economics. He joined Content Guru in January 2010.
From graduation, John trained as an accountant in the Thames Valley before jointly founding 8el, a UK-focused voice and data carrier, in 1999. 8el provides wide area networking and VoIP services into mid-sized businesses.
Within 8el John’s main area of responsibility were the financial and commercial day-to-day activities of the business. These included management and financial reporting, the business model and legal and supplier relationships.
John managed the development of 8el’s business division, servicing the Formula One motor racing community, and was subsequently responsible for the corporate positioning which achieved the successful sale of that division. More recently, as well as his commercial and financial role, John led the Sales and Marketing team to launch and successfully grow 8el’s IP Centrex solution.
Stuart Munro – Director
Stuart Munro FRSA, is a Chartered Manager and Chartered Marketeer with 30 years’ experience of senior management in telecommunications and data communications.
Stuart’s career started with the Plessey Company in the UK, where he worked in sales and marketing for PBX systems, and finally as Managing Director of Plessey Ireland. While at Plessey, Stuart negotiated the establishment of a joint manufacturing and development company in the People’s Republic of China.
From Plessey, Stuart joined Northern Telecom (Nortel) as Director and General Manger, Northern Telecom UK, responsible for UK Operations. He moved to British Telecom (BT) in 1990 as General Manager Data Communications, with worldwide responsibility for development, product management and network services development.
In 1993 Stuart moved to Summa Four Inc. as Managing Director Europe and Vice President International Operations (successfully floated on NASDAQ), and he was one of the founding shareholders of Telecom Sciences Corporation (TSc) in 1996.
Leaving TSc in 1998, Stuart became managing director at RSLCOM, with responsibility for operations in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. After four years in this role he moved on to co-found a group of specialist private companies, including Quotex International Ltd, Northline Ltd, Quotex Communications and Inverkirk Ltd.
Stuart Munro joined Content Guru from his role as Director, Sales and Business Development, for hosted communications specialists iHub UK Ltd, an IP Centrex pioneer, which he co-founded in 2006. Stuart now brings this broad experience of the international technology industry to his business development role at Content Guru.